1. Let's just start with the most basic- the jar is 99.9% empty.
2. Rory can't have peanut butter.
3. Marli's tongue is about an inch long.
My husband decided it was worth returning to the pantry. I can't even begin to guess why.
Friday, October 10, 2014
The Difference Between Men and Women
I can't speak for the entire female population, but I personally would have thrown this jar of peanut butter away based on the following facts:
1. Let's just start with the most basic- the jar is 99.9% empty.
2. Rory can't have peanut butter.
3. Marli's tongue is about an inch long.
My husband decided it was worth returning to the pantry. I can't even begin to guess why.
1. Let's just start with the most basic- the jar is 99.9% empty.
2. Rory can't have peanut butter.
3. Marli's tongue is about an inch long.
My husband decided it was worth returning to the pantry. I can't even begin to guess why.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
How I Know It's Four O' Clock (A Photo Essay)
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| (Let's just say this isn't the only toilet paper roll in the house that looks like this.) |
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| Disappointed husband not pictured. |
Three Things Thursday
1. Gilmore Girls is on Netflix!
Hello, my name is Lindsey, and I am a Gilmore Girls addict. All 100 episodes are on Netflix, and I've almost plowed through the first season in the span of 5 days. I forgot how witty, charming, and awesomely cheesy this show is. It's a nice break from Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Bachelor in Paradise. I will save the topic of the downfall of American television for another day.
2. Rory's First Birthday
Rory turns one in less than a month. (How did this happen?!) I am in the process of planning her birthday party, and once again, Pinterest saves the day. I want something
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| The cake is what I'm most excited about. Obviously. |
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| A good excuse to print the photos that have been living in our computer for the past year. |
3. Christmas Card Photos
Ugh. I managed to avoid this painful process last year because Rory was only a few months old at Christmas, but I have yet to think of an acceptable excuse for this year, so I guess you'll be receiving a card from us in a few months. (Just don't expect a letter detailing our every accomplishment in 2014...especially since the only real accomplishment I can think of is, "managed to keep baby alive and well.") The nice thing about having a kid is that you don't actually have to be in the picture yourself, so we're planning on taking a few shots of Rory in a Santa hat and calling it a day.
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| Is this for real? |
Monday, October 6, 2014
My Obligatory Pumpkin Patch Post
We visited a local pumpkin patch yesterday (along with the rest of Highlands Ranch, apparently), and I wouldn't be living up to my white American suburban mom stereotype if I didn't blog about it. (To be fair, I didn't war UGGS and I was drinking an iced coffee, not a pumpkin spice latte.) We only had to drive about twenty minutes to Flat Acres Farm in Parker, Colorado. The admission was a little steep ($11!), but this place had everything: bouncy houses, a corn maze, playgrounds, a petting zoo, and even corn kernel boxes. (See picture below. I know, I was confused at first, too.) And the best part of the whole day was that Rory was finally able to wear her candy corn pants.
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| Don't judge me. My kid won't keep socks on. |
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| "Look mom! Over there! Another white girl taking a selfie in her infinity scarf!" |
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| How cute are these pants?! |
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| Oh, hi! |
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| I know! Instead of sand, we'll fill the box with a million tiny choking hazards. Brilliant! |
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| She was obsessed with this blow-up Frankenstein, yet she couldn't care less about the animals in the petting zoo. |
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| The entrance to the "Snake Pit". (It was just a long tunnel with random hay bales.) |
Friday, October 3, 2014
The Weight of the World
When Rory was born my anxiety hit an all time high. I was running on very little sleep and it suddenly hit me that I was now responsible for keeping another human being alive and well. Almost a year has passed since she was placed in my arms for the first time, and though I am no longer sleep deprived, I am still as worried and anxious as the day she was born. As Rory grows and changes, so do my worries.
Our world is a scary place, and it may sound strange, but it wasn't until Rory was born that I understood why some people don't want children. And not because I regretted for a single second our decision to have a child, but because of the enormous pressure and anxiety that comes with bringing a child into the world. There are days, and sometimes whole weeks when I have this constant ache in my chest because I can't stop thinking about every little thing that can go wrong.There are the normal, everyday worries: Am I doing enough to stimulate my child's brain development? Is my baby eating enough? When should she go down to just one nap a day?
And then there are the bigger, scarier questions that some people are lucky enough to be able to push towards the back of their minds: What if my baby gets cancer? What if I get cancer and my baby grows up without a mother? What if she's allergic to bees and I don't know it? Will she be bullied? Or worse, will she be a bully? Will she be one of the 2 in 5 people who is sexually abused as a child?
Social media and the news do little to relieve my fears. There's Ebola and child abductions and planes disappearing. There's the story of the mom who forego chemo to save her baby, and the little girl who was found 20 miles from where I live cut up into pieces by a 17 year old stranger who lived in her neighborhood. I remember watching a Dutch man being interviewed after the Malaysia flight was shot down over Ukraine. His only daughter was on that flight, and I remember he said, "Whoever shot that plane down, they ruined my life." By the end of the interview, I had tears streaming down my face, because every parent's worst nightmare is burying their child. Sometimes I just want to cross my arms, stomp my foot and scream, "It's not fair!" Why do such bad things have to happen to good people, and why do bad people get away with such awful things?
On an intellectual level I know that worrying about things like autism and car accidents does nothing to prevent them from happening, but I can't seem to stop myself from viewing the world through a mother's eyes. I have this beautiful, healthy, perfect baby, and all I can think about is that she could be taken from me in less time than it takes to switch lanes on the highway or close the gate at the top of the stairs. We like to think of ourselves as invincible, but human life is fragile.
My point is that being a mother is harder than I ever imagined it would be. I knew waking up in the middle of the night and no longer having any time to myself would be difficult, but I didn't understand the emotional weight that I would gain the day that Rory was born. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Without a doubt. The joys of motherhood far outweigh the challenges, but becoming a mother made me realize that it's possible to love someone so much it physically hurts. It has made me painfully aware of all of the evil that exists in this world.
But being a mom has also made me see joy in the smallest of things. A first step. The shriek of joy that always accompanies bath time. The butterfly that landed on Rory's shoulder yesterday. So, with unimaginable pain comes unattainable joy. That's the way the world works, because without pain and heartache, we wouldn't know what it means to be truly happy...what it means to be a mother.
Our world is a scary place, and it may sound strange, but it wasn't until Rory was born that I understood why some people don't want children. And not because I regretted for a single second our decision to have a child, but because of the enormous pressure and anxiety that comes with bringing a child into the world. There are days, and sometimes whole weeks when I have this constant ache in my chest because I can't stop thinking about every little thing that can go wrong.There are the normal, everyday worries: Am I doing enough to stimulate my child's brain development? Is my baby eating enough? When should she go down to just one nap a day?
And then there are the bigger, scarier questions that some people are lucky enough to be able to push towards the back of their minds: What if my baby gets cancer? What if I get cancer and my baby grows up without a mother? What if she's allergic to bees and I don't know it? Will she be bullied? Or worse, will she be a bully? Will she be one of the 2 in 5 people who is sexually abused as a child?
Social media and the news do little to relieve my fears. There's Ebola and child abductions and planes disappearing. There's the story of the mom who forego chemo to save her baby, and the little girl who was found 20 miles from where I live cut up into pieces by a 17 year old stranger who lived in her neighborhood. I remember watching a Dutch man being interviewed after the Malaysia flight was shot down over Ukraine. His only daughter was on that flight, and I remember he said, "Whoever shot that plane down, they ruined my life." By the end of the interview, I had tears streaming down my face, because every parent's worst nightmare is burying their child. Sometimes I just want to cross my arms, stomp my foot and scream, "It's not fair!" Why do such bad things have to happen to good people, and why do bad people get away with such awful things?
On an intellectual level I know that worrying about things like autism and car accidents does nothing to prevent them from happening, but I can't seem to stop myself from viewing the world through a mother's eyes. I have this beautiful, healthy, perfect baby, and all I can think about is that she could be taken from me in less time than it takes to switch lanes on the highway or close the gate at the top of the stairs. We like to think of ourselves as invincible, but human life is fragile.
My point is that being a mother is harder than I ever imagined it would be. I knew waking up in the middle of the night and no longer having any time to myself would be difficult, but I didn't understand the emotional weight that I would gain the day that Rory was born. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Without a doubt. The joys of motherhood far outweigh the challenges, but becoming a mother made me realize that it's possible to love someone so much it physically hurts. It has made me painfully aware of all of the evil that exists in this world.
But being a mom has also made me see joy in the smallest of things. A first step. The shriek of joy that always accompanies bath time. The butterfly that landed on Rory's shoulder yesterday. So, with unimaginable pain comes unattainable joy. That's the way the world works, because without pain and heartache, we wouldn't know what it means to be truly happy...what it means to be a mother.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
A List of Things Rory Called Daddy Today
1. My toothbrush
2. A book
3. Matt Lauer
4. The bathroom door
5. A scarecrow at Hobby Lobby
6. The librarian (To be fair, she was Asian.)
7. Her bath toy
Three Things Thursday
1. So, we need a new roof.
We had a crazy hailstorm on Monday. It went from zero to golfball-sized hail in about 20 seconds flat. As a precaution, I called a roofing company yesterday to assess if there was any damage. Here's how our conversation went:
Tony (Or was it Tommy?): Um, you need a new roof.
Me: Are you sure?
Tony/Tommy: Pretty sure. Here are some pictures. (He shows me some pretty gory pictures of our roof.) Do you have any questions?
Me: Yes, a very important one, actually. How is this going to interfere with my daughter's naps?
I would also like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to Marcos who texted me about ten minutes before this chaos began and told me to move the car into the garage. I waited a little too long, and let's just say our car didn't make it out unscathed. You were right and I was wrong.
2. My First IKEA Hack
Ever since the invention of Pinterest, I've been fascinated by IKEA hacks. I love IKEA (I mean, who doesn't?), and we have several IKEA pieces in our house, mostly from our very first apartment in New Hampshire. This means that these tables/dressers/shelves have survived four different moves. (Don't tell me that this stuff doesn't hold up well.) When we finished the basement, I knew I wanted to turn our black Expedit book case into toy storage for Rory, but I wanted to change it up a little. I used light gray chalk paint to paint the outside and we stapled fabric to the back. Here is the finished result:
3. "Shake it Off"
I love me some T-Swift , and her new song is so darn catchy. I've watched the video on Youtube more times than I care to admit. Here's the link. (You can thank me later.)
We had a crazy hailstorm on Monday. It went from zero to golfball-sized hail in about 20 seconds flat. As a precaution, I called a roofing company yesterday to assess if there was any damage. Here's how our conversation went:
Tony (Or was it Tommy?): Um, you need a new roof.
Me: Are you sure?
Tony/Tommy: Pretty sure. Here are some pictures. (He shows me some pretty gory pictures of our roof.) Do you have any questions?
Me: Yes, a very important one, actually. How is this going to interfere with my daughter's naps?
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| Front View. |
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| Back View. Liberty Mutual said they'd replace the table, so that's good news. |
2. My First IKEA Hack
Ever since the invention of Pinterest, I've been fascinated by IKEA hacks. I love IKEA (I mean, who doesn't?), and we have several IKEA pieces in our house, mostly from our very first apartment in New Hampshire. This means that these tables/dressers/shelves have survived four different moves. (Don't tell me that this stuff doesn't hold up well.) When we finished the basement, I knew I wanted to turn our black Expedit book case into toy storage for Rory, but I wanted to change it up a little. I used light gray chalk paint to paint the outside and we stapled fabric to the back. Here is the finished result:
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| Close-up. I did some sanding around the edges for a distressed look. |
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| We just used a staple gun to staple some cheap fabric to the back. It looks good and keeps the baskets from going all the way through and hitting the wall. |
3. "Shake it Off"
I love me some T-Swift , and her new song is so darn catchy. I've watched the video on Youtube more times than I care to admit. Here's the link. (You can thank me later.)
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